Microsoft's Comparison To Linux In The Server Market Conveniently Leaves Out Free

from the let-me-write-the-definitions... dept

If you get to define a "market" you can create all sorts of misleading results. Take, for example, this recent blog post from Microsoft, where it tried to show off just how big the company was using a variety of numbers. Thankfully, Charles Arthur, over at The Guardian went through the numbers in greater detail to point out where and how they were misleading. One example, highlighted by Glyn Moody is the claims of Linux server market share, and how it supposedly "failed" to live up to expectations. Here's what Microsoft had in its blog post (which I recreated by hand, because, as Arthur notes, Microsoft's HTML is full of ridiculous crap):

Now, this might strikes some of you as not sounding right. After all, most of have have noticed that Linux servers seem to be pretty damn common throughout the world. Most of the biggest online companies in the world use Linux, and it's difficult to think of an online startup that doesn't use Linux. Charles Arthur breaks down how incredibly misleading this is:

This is a really interesting one, because it is a distortion of reality that would have Steve Jobs applauding at its subtlety. You look at those numbers and think: wow, Linux servers really aren't popular. How odd, because you'll notice that you come across Linux servers all over the place: Google, Facebook (which runs F5's Big IP, which is Linux), Yahoo, Amazon, Wordpress.com (which hosts millions of blogs), Twitter... so why such a small number? (The only major site I could quickly find that runs Windows Server is eBay.)

Answer: because those "market share" figures are for Linux server licences sold. Microsoft doesn't count them - and because the market research companies can't count them - if money doesn't change hands. True, this indicates that companies selling Linux servers (principally hardware) aren't making headway against Windows Server. But what it doesn't tell you is what progress Linux is making overall on the web. For that, you need Netcraft. And that suggests that Linux has a really big market share.

In other words, to make these numbers come out this way, Microsoft is pretending that "free" Linux servers are not competitors. This is a silly sort of willful blindness. Obviously, free Linux is a huge competitor to Microsoft's servers, and widely used in place of it. To ignore those numbers to try to suggest Linux has less marketshare is to deny reality.

Unlicensed Microsoft Servers

There are free / unlicensed / pirated Microsoft web servers too -- nowhere near as much as Linux of course. Still, I'd love to see a survey comparing Microsoft server licenses sold vs. actual servers in use.

Its mis-lead and deny there is anything wrong combined

"In other words, to make these numbers come out this way, Microsoft is pretending that "free" Linux servers are not competitors. This is a silly sort of willful blindness."

They are either purposely misleading people to show why people should use their software, or they are deluding themselves. More than likely its a combination of both. Combine that with the USTR report placing countries about to go open source in the "BAD" IP country column and it shows a true fear of growing influence and use of Linux.

Same old same old...

They've done this before. When trying to claim that the loss of market share in netbooks compared to more typical desktops and laptops to Linux wasn't really a loss but a win, they only counted sales of netbooks, even excluding sales from online stores (even then the figure was around 70% if I recall for Windows).

Of course, some of the bigger sellers of Linux on netbooks would be online stores, including Dell.

Misleading Revenue Figures?

How about this unsubstantiated statement from Preston Gralla: "When it comes to revenue, Windows cleans up as well, with nearly $5.4 billion in revenue for the quarter, compared to a little over $1.9 billion in revenue for Linux." If we want an apples to apples comparison on Linux versus Windows we need to know the actual number of servers installed.

Re: Misleading Revenue Figures?

Windows cleans up as well, with nearly $5.4 billion in revenue for the quarter, compared to a little over $1.9 billion in revenue for Linux.

Considering the OS can be had for free, aren't these people alarmed that the licensed version of Linux is generating revenue in excess of 35 percent of what MS is pulling down for its once-ubiquitous license-only OS?

You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons TRADE, and GOODS and SERVICES are exchanged, forming part of the economy.

"Market Share"

Lots of people use dirt, if you supply dirt for free can you claim you have a massive market share, because people are using a thing they can get for free?

Market share is the share of THE MARKET, the market is who many of your product you SELL.

So a market share is a persentage or prportion of the total availablemarket or market segment that is **being serviced by a company**.

Expressed as a companies sales revenue (from that market) divided by the total sale revenue availablein that market.

That means **BY DEFINITION** you are not selling to a market, you are not taking revenue from the market.

So by the definition of the term you have no market share, and no matter how much "stuff" you have out there, its not a part of the market.

BTW: sure, ISP's and web hosters use FOSS software, because ITS CHEAP, or FREE more to the point.

Most SME's use a windows based server system, for their internal networks and data systems. Very very few use FOSS for that purpose, that is where MS rule the server market, in both sales and actual product install base.

The market is growning and expanding, and the market has not even been entered into by FOSS.

Which means there are really no commercially viable product coming from FOSS, the only prodct worth using from from is the free stuff. And often even then its not worth it.

Your better off paying good money for good product, and that is what most people do.

FOSS has had 20 plus years to sort itself out, and its going backwards not forwards. its getting more political, or adverserial, more bitter and its not getting them anywhere.

You would think after 20 years or more they could get their act together,, but no.., sadly..

Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

If people sell stuff priced at 0, your model falls apart.
Hey, guess what? People do that all the time...bummer.

"And often even then its not worth it. "

You are dumb. Just think about this one:

To update a windows server, you often need to restart it. That causes down-time. And that cost you money. In a Linux server, you only really need to restart if you recompile the kernel...and even then, I've read that it might be possible to do it without restarting. That means virtually no down-time.

Another one:

To run a windows server, you need a bulky OS that eats a ton of resources, while I've read that it is possible to have an HTML sever, fully configured and ready to run, that fits in a diskette or less.

"FOSS has had 20 plus years to sort itself out, and its going backwards not forwards. its getting more political, or adverserial, more bitter and its not getting them anywhere.

You would think after 20 years or more they could get their act together,, but no.., sadly.."

Let's see...off the top of my head,the Open-source projects I can think of are: Firefox, (a million flavors of) Linux, the Python interpreter, GCC, hundreds of games (Battle for Wesnoth, TORCS, Sauerbraten)...There are currently millions open-source projects out there that are still going strong.

Re: Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

"To update a windows server, you often need to restart it. That causes down-time. And that cost you money. In a Linux server, you only really need to restart if you recompile the kernel...and even then, I've read that it might be possible to do it without restarting. That means virtually no down-time."

This isn't as significant as non admins may first think, especially for web servers. If you run a Windows network then server redundancy is all but required (just try upgrading a domain without a second domain controller, for instance). In the case of web servers it is extremely easy to share loads seamlessly. Having said that, your point still stands in that it is far easier, in my experience, to manage Linux machines of any sort rather than Windows equivalents.

"To run a windows server, you need a bulky OS that eats a ton of resources, while I've read that it is possible to have an HTML sever, fully configured and ready to run, that fits in a diskette or less."

Theoretically you could do a pretty darn slim version of Windows, especially if you encouraged Microsoft to help you (I question the need for a super slim OS, though). They have already incorporated a 'headless' (non GUI) install option in the latest server software. Why you'd want to, when there are pre-configured Linux alternatives, is another matter.

It is ironic that Microsoft is considered by many to be the 'turnkey' solution to any problem, yet tends to require far more investment to do equivalent tasks. I place a fair amount of blame on education establishments. When Microsoft offer 'free' software for education what effectively happens is that they get subsidised training.

Re: Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

Re: Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

So, if somebody decides to install a free copy of Linux, it's impossible to sell them a support licence later down the line? They will never parlay their positive experience with a Fedora install into a licensed Red Hat service when they expand, or the entrepreneur creates his next startup? People who get one thing for free are never in the market for anything else?

Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

That means **BY DEFINITION** you are not selling to a market, you are not taking revenue from the market.

So by the definition of the term you have no market share, and no matter how much "stuff" you have out there, its not a part of the market.

There used to be a good business selling the time.

The people that did it would invest in some highly accurate ship's chronometers and then set them every day by visiting Greenwich Observatory.

Then they would go round the streets giving local businesses an accurate timecheck. They charged a significant sum for this service and (if I remember correctly) the last such operator (a woman) was still going during the 1930's. Of course at that point she had a 100% market share for "The Time" - because - by your reasoning all the people getting the same information from elsewhere for free didn't count.

The point to note is that having 100% market share did not prevent her from being 100% irrelevant.

Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

A market, actually, includes things such as free and gifting because if you exclude that you distort the market.

Then, of course, you proceed to distort the market.

"Most SME's use a windows based server system, for their internal networks and data systems."

If my SME you mean subject matter expert then I'll challenge that one right away. Many companies use variations of 'Nix out there and Microsoft only for the last jump where they do at all. Conmpanies, and there are many, universities and governments who lease facilities and the expertise of IBM are Linux from beginning to end. No one in their right mind would run a MS server and certainly NOT IIS on the perimeter. Novel offers beginning to end Linux solutions and is doing well by it.

The server business on Linux is huge and not dominated by MSCEs which must the the most looked down on certification available.

All telephone switching is done using a variant of 'Nix, either Linux or BSD because they have to be survivable which Windows, for all it's advances, isn't and never will be as long as it relies on the "registry" to function. And the manufacturers "roll their own" versions and variations and most give back to the community. Same for key systems and switchboards.

The Mars rovers are Linux cause NASA can "roll their own" to their own needs and specifications something they cannot do with Windows.

The most powerful supercomputer on the planet is runnig Linux. Not bad for a failure.

The backbone servers of the Internet are, now, only Linux and most DNS severs out there are Linux or NetBSD.

"Which means there are really no commercially viable product coming from FOSS"

MySQL anyone?

"...the only prodct worth using from from is the free stuff. And often even then its not worth it.

Your better off paying good money for good product, and that is what most people do."

About now you're reminding me of a couple of ZDNet trollers, one nicked Loverock Davidson and the other one known as NoAxeToGrind. Like them you resort to fantasy if reality and facts don't suffice.

Incidentally the spelling and grammar would indicate Lovey though by now he'd be on his screed about having to compile all FOSS from scratch and so on.

The guy writing the blog cited by Mike is a PR guy. Statistics are probably well beyond him. They're beyond you too.

One more time, repeat after me, the "market", an undistorted one, includes the free, the gifted and the donated. It certainly is not confined to paid product all the time.

Actually, those who use Linux don't just use if because it's nominally free they use it for any number of reasons going from that it's far more secure than Windows, it's customizable unlike Windows, it's scalable from small (devices) to huge (mainframes) from slow (a watch) to fast (a supercomputer).

And this is for intelligent people not Windows fanbois or ZDNet trollers.

Nice illusion there. Government is mixed, depending on application, most power suppliers use Linux for critical apps and networks, a large percentage of trading floor software is Linux or BSD (if it's good enough for NASA it's good enough for us) and I don't really care at this point what people use at home because it's not part of the discussion. (Nice diversion there, though).

"when I was running my own IT support company, I can tell you the number of Linux servers compared to the number of windows servers would be easily 100 or more to 1."

You obviously work in a different IT industry than I've been a a part of for nearly 4 decades or you're not paying attention. Then again, if the best you can do is Ma and Pa Pizza in Perth then perhaps you have a point. About the best an MSCE should and ought to get you.

"Usually more cost for linux "experts" (if you can find them) than it is to BUY MS's product, where support is as close as the phone book,"

Fail cause it's simply wrong. Right 10 years ago maybe but wrong now. Not even right a decade ago. Any Unix support type can support Linux, btw, cause they're remarkably similar.

And most MS support in the Yellow Pages are MSCE who are a total waste of space should anything serious go wrong.

Re: Re: Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

Excuse me, MR. "that is just what I experienced ACTAULLY working in the industry", but your experience is kinda screwy.

My experience is that the workstations are usually running windows (because people are more used to Windows and Office), but the actual backbone of the company runs on Linux.

Your experience of having hundreds of Windows servers on site with one Linux server serving as Firewall is also extremely suspicious. If Windows can take the brunt of handling possibly thousands of requests per minute, why can't it handle the Firewall? Are you just making stuff up? Or are you admitting that Windows servers are naturally insecure? Probably all of them should be running Linux then.

And about free. Linux is free as in free speech. This means that you can analyze, study and modify it freely to meet your demands. You can't do that with Windows.

Of course you need trained people to handle it, but that should not be a problem because any I.T. staff worth it's salt SHOULD know Linux.

Re: Re: Re: Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

"Your experience of having hundreds of Windows servers on site with one Linux server serving as Firewall is also extremely suspicious. If Windows can take the brunt of handling possibly thousands of requests per minute, why can't it handle the Firewall? Are you just making stuff up? Or are you admitting that Windows servers are naturally insecure? Probably all of them should be running Linux then."

I run a Windows network (pity is welcome) and we have a token Linux machine. Not as the firewall of course, we have a router for that. The Linux machine is a virtual machine on the Windows Server, with Davical installed. The fact that I can add Linux to a Windows network to provide extra functionality at zero cost is a big point in favour of Linux as far as I am concerned. If it was a dedicated Linux server then I can't imagine anything that only runs on Windows Server which would be worth the cost. WSUS would be an arguable one, presuming we still had majority of Windows client machines. On the other hand I don't like WSUS anyway and bet that a proxy cache could handle at least half of that problem.

Re: Re: Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

"when I was running my own IT support company, I can tell you the number of Linux servers compared to the number of windows servers would be easily 100 or more to 1."

You mean, the ones that called you in for support, presumably? I am not disagreeing, it is my experience that a lot of small businesses use Windows Server, but then all that may prove is that those who don't tend not to need third party IT support.

"Most companies will have hundreds of computers on site, lots of servers, and may be ONE linux box for some basic function like web fire will, or INET server. Just for the basic stuff."

The basic stuff that all those Windows servers couldn't do? Odd, that.

"All the backoffice operations are dont with windows enterprise applications. for which there is a vast level of technical support from MS and third parties."

The same could be said for Linux, with the added bonus of public bug trackers and source repositories.

"If you want to get 2 linux "experts" onsite for a day, you wont see any change from AUS$1000, and probably very little change from A$2000 dollars."

If, as you imply, they're not experts then isn't the price moot? Plus, assuming you are talking about Australian dollars (I thought it was aud not aus), that seems equivalent to £45 per hour per person for six hours. If you think that is a rip off for onsite experts.. here is the first result on Google UK for onsite IT support: "Our rates for PC & Server repairs during office hours start from
£60 + VAT per hour". Btw, that is for MCP's.

"Usually more cost for linux "experts" (if you can find them) than it is to BUY MS's product, where support is as close as the phone book,"

This makes no sense, are you saying people don't need to pay for support with Microsoft stuff? Yet you ran a Microsoft orientated IT support company?

Re: You need to have a "market" before you can have a market share

No they don't use it because it is cheap or free. They use it because it is effective, provides value, is stable, and cannot be taken away. If I wanted to pay too much, deliver past due, allow venders to dictate my upgrade path, and drive me to needlessly replace my hardware, then I guess I would go with the "Market". Closed Source has had a long time to get its act together, but no.... sadly.

You go tell Amazon that Linux is not worth using. Or Akamai, the company that serves up Bing. Or tell Google that python is not right for them. Big or Small, you have the same access to the best software, unlike Vendors with its multiple versions, license levels, and per seat crap.

when you get into the corporate world (aka, not web serving but actual servers) the market place is dominated by windows servers, and other products in the direction of Novell or others. servers are a huge business, and often a critical business decision. few companies larger companies are willing to take the risk on a free product, considering the costs for the server license isnt really significant in the grand scheme of things.

they tend to value things like integration, ability to hire staff to maintain them, reliable service, hardware support, and the like.

if you think that the server market starts and ends on web servers, you failed to understand the market at all.

Re:

Re: Re:

no, i dont think that the assumption of free as "worse" is the point, rather that the free product is not integrated in the same manner, and may or may not have any go forward support. the question often would be "who do you call for support?, and the answer would be "nobody".

remember, the internet community thing is still pretty young, companies made their software choices in the past when linux was not a very good business option, and those companies continue down the path they have chosen. if anything, the free software universe may be taking license sales away from linux, as they are perhaps less relevant in the mindspace these days.

Re: Re: Re:

the question often would be "who do you call for support?, and the answer would be "nobody".

Heh, except one of the values of open source is that the answer is actually "lots of people." There are tons of organizations that will handle support for Linux installations, meaning you actually have *greater* choice and greater options than if you limited yourself to Microsoft.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

"It's those little details that always get you..." - oh mike, you are such a miserable little weenie at times. you claim i dont read stuff, and yet you ignored the important paert of my post:

"the internet community thing is still pretty young, companies made their software choices in the past when linux was not a very good business option, and those companies continue down the path they have chosen". when the companies were making the choice, there was not a strong online community to support this stuff, and still to this day, while there is a strong community, it is often filled with people who dont have answers.

business people like their answers quickly and from an authoritative source. upper management isnt thrilled by "bob on the internet said we should...". they want to know that someone from a company they trust is on the job.

so again, while the internet thing might be cool right now, as little as a few years ago it sucked horribly. businesses do not change their operating systems and environments every year, nor do they do it lightly.

perhaps mike, if you read all of my post (it was pretty short, come on), you might actually get the point. or is this another "do as i say, not do as i do" moment?

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

"business people like their answers quickly and from an authoritative source. upper management isnt thrilled by "bob on the internet said we should...". they want to know that someone from a company they trust is on the job."

The reality is that, maintenance contracts aside, the best answers DO come fom "bob on the intenet" and that's happening with increasing frequency. Operating systems are highly complex by nature and no one is authoritative on all of it. No one. That problem increases with Windows because the source isn't avaialable to review both outside Redmond or inside it if you work in the "wrong" silo.

So if, internally they use Windows are are happy with it and the eternal never ending reboots and security issues more power to them. More expense too.

And you are right that these things are not changed on a whim but the reality is that from the first server out from the workstatons back to the main servers the OS is immaterial. Actually, the server the workstations connect to is largely immaterial as well IF it doesn't serve applications. As long as the data can be shuffled back and forth it doesn't matter.

Never mind the reality that most self contained servers such as those that come from Cisco and others are running Linux or BSD whether Windows is running in a virtual session or not. Virtually all self contained smart/intelligent routers run Linux too. So there you go. Most corporate networks do, in fact, run Linux and a lot of it and the neverous execs probably have no idea. (It's obvious you don't have a clue.)

For small and smaller medium sized businesses Windows networks are fine, easily maintained and robust enough. Once a certain size and complexity line gets crossed if you stick with Windows you're gonna have problems anda lot of them. And that were 'Nix servers whether they're Linux, one of the BSDs, Solairis, Open Solaris etc shine. 'Nix what built from the ground up to network. No awkward tack on code to a code base that's 30 years old and never updated cause it's buried so deep. (Unless you were SCO.)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

'"the internet community thing is still pretty young, companies made their software choices in the past when linux was not a very good business option, and those companies continue down the path they have chosen". when the companies were making the choice, there was not a strong online community to support this stuff, and still to this day, while there is a strong community, it is often filled with people who dont have answers.'

Support wise, the key difference between Linux and its closed source competitors is that Linux has public bug trackers and source repositories. Why you put more faith in people who are paid to deceive you than those who are committed to open development boggles the mind.

"business people like their answers quickly and from an authoritative source. upper management isnt thrilled by "bob on the internet said we should...". they want to know that someone from a company they trust is on the job."

Do you have a red phone marked 'Steve Ballmer' or something? I ask because the chances of getting an answer from an authoritative source via the normal channels as a Microsoft customer seems slim to none.

"so again, while the internet thing might be cool right now, as little as a few years ago it sucked horribly. businesses do not change their operating systems and environments every year, nor do they do it lightly."

That's hardly a point in closed source's favour. Famously, when Office 2000 reached end of support, Microsoft accidentally deleted all of the service packs. Of course, it's not actually lawful for anyone else to distribute them and Microsoft couldn't care less, they didn't even bother updating the broken links.

Re: Re: Re:

no, i dont think that the assumption of free as "worse" is the point, rather that the free product is not integrated in the same manner, and may or may not have any go forward support. the question often would be "who do you call for support?, and the answer would be "nobody".

All this demonstrates is that you have swallowed Microsoft's FUD hook line and sinker.

The reality is quite different these days. (Reliability wise it has been for a very long time).

Re: Re: Re:

Oh Gawd, where to start with this silliness.

"rather that the free product is not integrated in the same manner, and may or may not have any go forward support. the question often would be "who do you call for support?, and the answer would be "nobody"

Oh dear parroting the FUD line again? Look, before MS got into the corporate server act, with NT and somewhat seriously with Win2K most corporate servers were Unix or Novel. Even Windows servers are customized to some degree or other depending on what they do. Integration is the responsibility of the vendor the company chooses. It's just as easy to choose a MS vendor who collapses tomorrow as it is a Unix/Netware/Linux/BSD vendor. So choose carefully. Due diligence, right? THAT is where you get your support or any number of other locations. Problem with MS? Yes, lots of ads out there but then you have to separate the capable from the incompetent and I've seen far too many incompetent people who work in Windows only environments and the messes they can create.

"remember, the internet community thing is still pretty young, companies made their software choices in the past when linux was not a very good business option, and those companies continue down the path they have chosen"

So then, let's try this on.

In the early 90s when Linux development started there were still Unix companies around and the BSDs were stable and available to anyone who looked beyond the next MS ad. So Unix and BSD were good business options back then. MS's networking didn't mature, if it can be said to be mature now (quite a reach technically IMHO), until the release of Win2K.

Companies do change their networking and servers more often, it seems, than you realize.

Now, if any single statement you've made reveals your total and complete (willful) ignorance of both the FOSS world and Linux.

[shout on]
LINUX IS FREE SOFTWARE!
[/shout off]

Clear now? So just how does free software take away from what Linux already is? You don't need to buy an extravagantly expensive license to install, test, tweak and deploy a Linux server. Nor do you get caught in vendor lock in.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

"Clear now? So just how does free software take away from what Linux already is? You don't need to buy an extravagantly expensive license to install, test, tweak and deploy a Linux server. Nor do you get caught in vendor lock in."

It's a bit much to expect TAM to 'get' free business models after years of reading a blog devoted to them. I'm guessing TAM is really some sort of perl bot, a one liner made in a fit of irony perhaps.

Re:

"servers are a huge business, and often a critical business decision. few companies larger companies are willing to take the risk on a free product, considering the costs for the server license isnt really significant in the grand scheme of things."

In my faculty, they pay about 10000 euros yearly just in windows licenses (for like 20 computers, the rest runs Linux, of course). I imagine how much a large corporation must pay...

The only reason companies aren't willing to take the risk is because they are dumb and don't know about the alternatives or someone sold them the "open-source is bad" boogeyman.

1- Linux integrates with anything you want. My home network, for example, runs on a Windows-Linux hybrid. Never been a problem.

2- Any guy coming out of the university with a computer related degree BETTER (for his sake) know about Linux.

3- Linux is more reliable than anything out there. I have a Debian server running for two months non-stop. Never crashed. Now, if I go to my windows desktop and turn it on, it crashed on startup once...then it' good to go for the rest of the day...reliable huh?

4- Hardware support is only a problem if you have some weird modem or scanner or something. The curse of hardware support is long gone from Linux.

Re: Re:

"I'm confused. What's the difference between web serving and actual serving?" - a large number of servers are used by companies to server files, share documents, and so on. they are central databases under windows os variants, storage for work product, etc. many of them do not serve any web pages (or a very limited amount) and are used for internal use.

web server is a subset of servers.

"Hardware support is only a problem if you have some weird modem or scanner or something. The curse of hardware support is long gone from Linux." - again, you need to re-read my post along with mike. companies do not change their systems over night. when the decisions were made (most companies go on a pretty long cycle) linux was still not ready for prime time in many cases. companies choose based on abilities today, likely abilities tomorrow, and the confidence they have in the products.

Re: Re: Re:

"a large number of servers are used by companies to server files, share documents, and so on. they are central databases under windows os variants, storage for work product, etc. many of them do not serve any web pages (or a very limited amount) and are used "

A web server and a "server" are the same thing, except a web server is public and usually must withstand a more punishment. They perform the same function.

Linux can perform this function as well as any other OS, usually better. Why must they be in Windows? So they fit nicely in the network? That's not a problem if you know how to configure Linux and Windows...in fact, windows is the one that actually gives the most headaches.

"companies do not change their systems over night. when the decisions were made (most companies go on a pretty long cycle) linux was still not ready for prime time in many cases."

Unix has been around for far longer than Windows or DOS. Linux has been around for about the same time as DOS. The hardware limitations became less of a problem as Linux matured and hasn't been a BIG problem since about (taking a guess here) 2000-2005 and is increasingly less of a problem.

The only things that still give headaches are strange pieces of hardware designed for Windows from companies that refuse to provide Linux drivers and haven't been reverse engineered by some crazy hacker yet (classical case: the so called WinModems).

"companies choose based on abilities today, likely abilities tomorrow, and the confidence they have in the products."

Abilities today: Surpasses most OSs in may fields; Reliable; Only problems today are ease of use and gaming;

Re:

IT staff that can't support any OS put in front of them are a waste of money.

And many enterprises do use Linux. especially when it comes to 1U appliances. also everyone who is using VMWare is using Linux. there are a ton of uses of non-windows in the enterprise world. most problems comes when C-level execs make stupid decisions based on the ads in Information Week. Windows is good if you need windows. Linux is good when you need Linux.

Re: Re:

"IT staff that can't support any OS put in front of them are a waste of money."

Which is one of the reasons that more and more companies are going to an MSP style contracted support. The idea is having a team at your disposal as opposed to a person or two. I work with several hybrid environments, and lord knows it helps having a fully fleshed out engineering staff that have different expertise and focuses to call upon....

Re: Re: Re:

Which is one of the reasons that more and more companies are going to an MSP style contracted support. The idea is having a team at your disposal as opposed to a person or two.

This is often a sound plan for many small to mid-sized corporations with (relatively) simple systems environments.

For businesses that rely heavily on complex system environments to conduct day to day business, and especially larger businesses susceptible to large scale contract abuse, I think it is a better value to develop internal technology staff as a core discipline of the company.

Re: Re: Re: Re:

Completely agreed. I should have clarified: we work almost entirely with the SMB market. Though I would caution you on the complexity statement. You'd be amazed at how complex a 100 person lawfirm can get....

Re:

And if you think that servers revolve small business's running SMB with 10-15 device CAL's, or schools being funded to buy Dell and Microsoft you also failed to understand the market, because thats what I thought of when I read your post.

Any IT guy that has an education know that linux is faster, more reliable, and uses less system resources so you can run more on less hardware. Sure it might be harder to setup the first time because you have to actually use a command line every now and then... but once its up and running you dont really have to change things. you don't have to install security patches on the hour, every hour.

"when you get into the corporate world (aka, not web serving but actual servers)"
Also if you had some data to backup your statement that "actual servers" run Microsoft more that would be one thing, Heres my data www.freewebs.com/joemusicproductions/LinuxvWindows.pdf . Microsoft only has 38% Market share across all server, web and "Actual"

Also what businesses these days don't have at least one webserver? let along a few hundred or thousand servers... yea don't count those.. one report I read said in 2004, 6 years ago, there were 35 million web servers... but its ok, they aren't real servers, we wont hold it against Microsoft.

Re: Re:

and linux is a mere 13% So the questions becomes, is linux being utilized or are corporations going between Windows and AIX/HP-UX/etc?

For my company it was simpler and more cost effective to stay with Windows, using linux perhaps 5-6 times throughout the enterprise. My division is exclusively windows based. It often makes more sense to go with the "bloated" system because of its established integrations. Our developers are .net developers, our 3rd party applications are windows based, the IT staff is experienced with Windows Server. The userbase knows Windows and Office. Sure we could probably save a ton of money on hardware going to a mostly Linux enviornment, but what would it cost to get all our 3rd party apps running on linux, what would it cost re-educating 60k employees, hire an entire new development staff, all while proceeding with business as usual? Would it probably be cheaper in the long term, once the pain was over? Most probably, would that pain be worth the potential risk in losing billions in contracts? Not likely.

Should devices like BigIP's be counted in MS's paper? I dunno, its an embedded OS on an appliance, why not count all the devices running Cisco iOS as well.

Also, notice that the examples given for companies running Linux are all relatively new, and didn't have an established infrastructure in place to uproot and replace. I would imagine starting from scratch makes it a lot easier to pick Linux since you can tailor all your choices on a blank slate.

Not really free

I work for a company that develops an embedded Linux OS for telecom equipment. One of the head Linux engineers once said:

"Linux is only free if your time is worthless."

While it's disappointing to see MS leaving out useful information, from a total cost of ownership, most companies select MS over Linux after doing the analysis, not blindly. When you have an army of Linux engineers on staff (like Google) you can choose the "free" option, but not everyone has that.

Modern companies have an army of servers (virtual or physical), most of which are not just Web servers. I know we run all our internal infrastructure on Windows Server, and we're a Linux company. Mostly because accounting, manufacturing, and financial systems (which require in most cases multiple servers) all run on Windows Server platforms, not Linux. Was it disingenuous of MS to only count license sales? Sure. But I don't think the world really runs on Linux, even if a large chunk of the internet does.

Re: Not really free

so because your (one) company can't find enterprise apps that run on linux that means there is noone else in the world who has? there are plenty of places i know that use Linux backends with windows front ends. again, because your company can't find anything doesn't mean it is there.
and from personal experience windows costs far exceed the actual cost of the software. Nothing is free when you count time spent as a cost, but windows is still more expensive if you add that in too.

Re: Not really free

'While it's disappointing to see MS leaving out useful information, from a total cost of ownership, most companies select MS over Linux after doing the analysis, not blindly. When you have an army of Linux engineers on staff (like Google) you can choose the "free" option, but not everyone has that.'

Why is Google different? They were using Linux long before they could afford 'an army of engineers'.

Linux skipped the desktop and jumped on the smartphone. Microsoft can have its marketshare numbers, it only does it a dis-service to brag and exaggerate about something that could bite it in the ass later if it goes down.

Anyone actually look at the IDC report?

No where does it state the software used, closest it came to that was revenue. This doesn't seem to count servers that have been depreciated and only seems to count servers shipped this year and total revenue.

Though if the OS portion are really accurate then give me a unix server which at 4.9% made 72% as much as the windows servers.

Which brings in how much it costs in upkeep to keep those servers running.

Re: free

If having a support contract is somehow mandated for you, then no, it isn't free. However, there are plenty of corporate environments that just run without a support contract and just handle support internally.

Re: Re: free

Support Contracts seem irrelevant I know plenty of business's that need support contacts for windows as well.

As far paying for a specific distro, the most popular would probably be CentOS for an "enterprise" distro, but nearly all released of linux can be configured and made to run anything you need, as stable and secure as you want.

Re: Re: Re: free

Wow I really should have proof-read that last paragraph

As far paying for a specific distro, the most popular free release would probably be CentOS for an "enterprise" distro, but nearly all releases of linux can be configured to run anything you need, as stable and secure as you want.

Re: Re: Re: Re: free

Perhaps support contracts wasn't the correct term.

What I mean is:
Some corporate environments will only allow you to run on officially supported environments. If you are looking at Oracle, for instance they only officially support commercial Linux distributions (Red Hat), which can actually be quite cost prohibitive even compared to the competition that you might use to run Oracle.

However, if you don't have stringent policies like this, you can of course use Oracle on CentOS just fine.

Are they counting LAMP shops? 'cause if they are that number is waaaaay, waaaay off. I can count the number of shops I service that use IIS on both hands, whereas if I had to count the number of LAMP shops, I'd have to be a hydra.

It also doesn't count FREE Microsoft servers....

You know.. the ones which are pirated.. which probably isn't a small number either.. I guess the point is that if microsoft's MARKET is to include "customers who spend money on servers", then I can see how it's fair to include only these numbers, at least in their internal calculations... I do see it as at least misleading if they're RELEASING these numbers as marketing.

With regard to long-term support for Linux:

The *old* central source model for software is no longer a limit. It's now within reach of *many* in IT to take the source code for a version of Linux and create a one-off version for in-house use, and then do *whatever* is necessary to keep it updated to current hardware -- or to allow continued use of old hardware. The existence of source code breaks *every* aspect of the M$ monopoly. If implemented correctly by management, their "own" OS would be a powerful incentive throughout the company, not least in IT, where it'd give outlet to creative urges and pride in accomplishment. -- Though that may be the *last* thing modern management wants.

My Observations as a developer

My experience is that, typically, the MS server to Linux server percentage is about 50-50 in America. Usually the MS server is there to support MS only technologies like Exchange, SQL server, SharePoint or Active Directory. Linux servers act as web, file, LDAP, SMP, Oracle, or DNS servers. So, of course, they can replace or work with any MS based function.

World-wide the numbers are probably even more significantly skewed toward Linux server use. Obviously, the numbers quoted are for preloaded shipped servers from a limited source of vendors. My observation (and practice) is that typically a Linux server is built from parts or ordered blank and Linux is added later.

Microsoft has one truly great advantage over Linux: Visual Studio. Although I am still not completely convinced of the usefulness of the .NET framework and Common Language Runtime (CLR), even after developing applications with it for several years, it is a nice development environment and there is nothing in Linux to truly compete with it - unless developing in Java, then the Linux platform is arguably superior (although I find Java libraries like Java Media Framework often more complete for Windows). The usual argument is that more development is done in Windows because there is a larger market. True, but if development becomes easier in Linux (especially if a cross compiler for Windows/.Net is available) and is cheap/free, there will be a lot more Linux development.

Additionally, when (if) OS runtime environments are all virtual and CLR common intermediate language and JRT bytecode are compatible you'll see an explosion in Linux desktop and server use. Of course, MS came up with CLR as a competitor to JRT after failing to usurp Java from Sun and this is unlikely.

Linux is also getting better on the desktop. I was not using Linux as a personal OS five years ago, but now have it on all of my workstations either as selective boot or running as a virtual machine.

If MS comes up with a Server OS as bad as Vista was on the desktop or misinterprets market demands (like the uncertain need for a cloud based Windows 8) Linux adoption will further increase.

Re: My Observations as a developer

"Microsoft has one truly great advantage over Linux: Visual Studio. Although I am still not completely convinced of the usefulness of the .NET framework and Common Language Runtime (CLR), even after developing applications with it for several years, it is a nice development environment and there is nothing in Linux to truly compete with it - unless developing in Java, then the Linux platform is arguably superior (although I find Java libraries like Java Media Framework often more complete for Windows). The usual argument is that more development is done in Windows because there is a larger market. True, but if development becomes easier in Linux (especially if a cross compiler for Windows/.Net is available) and is cheap/free, there will be a lot more Linux development."

You should take a good look at Qt and Qt Creator, bonus is that it runs on Windows too. Or just use Mono and stick with .NET.

"Additionally, when (if) OS runtime environments are all virtual and CLR common intermediate language and JRT bytecode are compatible you'll see an explosion in Linux desktop and server use. Of course, MS came up with CLR as a competitor to JRT after failing to usurp Java from Sun and this is unlikely."

I've not seen many desktop Linux developers seriously consider Java for a long time. Most of the stuff that was previously done in Java tends to be in Python now and I can't see that changing except where android is concerned.

Wow Microsoft...you really thought nobody would catch that?

It blows me away that in this hyper-connected world a company as large and prestigious as Microsoft is so arrogant as to think that they can parade around with bogus numbers and nobody is going to catch it. To me it shows a total lack of understanding of the new community driven landscape, and this is exactly why they will lose the battle to Linux. As soon as the general public overcomes all the FUD and the Linux awareness begins to hit mainstream, Microsoft is toast...it's simply a matter of time.

Take ClearOS as an example. They have over 130,000 registered systems across the globe. But how many systems are out there unregistered? 500,000? 1 million? 10 million? More? There's no way to know for sure. Linux operates on a different model, it's about mass adoption of the free version first, then skimming the paying customers off the top 10% or so. It's simply a process that will take time and awareness. Once the critical mass is reached it's game over for Microsoft.

Re: What about the free Linux distros ? what about them ?

"what about them, do they maintain and install themselves, configure themselves, provide self service ?
Require no administration, require no time to install, setup, test, deploy, and patch ?"

You pillock. They said 'without service contracts', how does that translate into 'magic'? I use Linux without a service contract, am I magic?

"Again, just because something is supposed to be "free" does not mean it is, and it does not mean its suitable for the job at hand."

Saying something is free doesn't deny that there may be a cost associated with using it. Please stop being dense, really, please. You do not pay for the software. Ergo, it is free. You probably value your time, which if spent installing said software, may be counted as a cost. The software is still free.

Which market makes sense?

For the purposes of Microsoft which market is worth counting: that in which an entity is willing to pay for software or all of them together? So rather than try and sort out whether or not these people using a *nix would otherwise have paid for a software / support license they count the ones that already did. The disingenuousness is all in your own heads, people.